HBU trustees plan to reconsider non-Baptists on board (Updated)

Houston Baptist University trustees plan to revisit the matter of allowing non-Baptist Christians on the school’s governing board.

In a Feb. 27 e-mail to directors of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board, Associate Executive Director Steve Vernon reported he had participated Feb. 25 in a meeting with HBU leaders who told him about the trustees’ intention.

Vernon — together with Executive Board Chair Debbie Ferrier and Chris Liebrum, director of the BGCT Education/Discipleship team –met in Houston with HBU President Robert Sloan, other administration officials from the university and pastors from the HBU board of trustees.

While the BGCT Executive Board met Feb. 21-22, HBU trustees at their regularly scheduled meeting discussed the issue of opening their board to some non-Baptist trustees, he said.

The special agreement between HBU and the BGCT allows HBU to elect 75 percent of its own trustees, with the BGCT electing the remaining 25 percent. Under the terms of the agreement, all trustees HBU elects must be Baptist but not necessarily from BGCT-affiliated churches.

A revised agreement recommended by the HBU trustees and the BGCT Executive Board last year but rejected in McAllen at the BGCT annual meeting would have allowed up to one third of the trustees elected by the university — one-fourth of the total board — to be non-Baptist Christians.

“Houston Baptist did not and does not need the permission of the BGCT to take this step. HBU went through the process last year as a matter of courtesy and as a way of discussion of the issue,” Vernon noted in his e-mail to the board.

“At the meeting I had with them on Friday, Houston Baptist University officials wanted to let us know that they would be voting on electing up to 25 percent of their board as non-Baptists Christians within the next few days. They wanted to give us at least 10 days of advance notice on their vote.”

On Feb. 11, Baylor University’s board of regents voted to amend that university’s bylaws, allowing members who are active in Christian — but not Baptist — churches to comprise up to 25 percent of the Baylor board.

However, Vernon said, HBU officials insisted their intended action is not in reaction to the move by the Baylor regents.

“As I understand the process of HBU, this was a discussion that began after the annual meeting at their November 2010 board meeting,” he said. “They assured us that it was in no way related to the Baylor University discussion. As with Baylor, this does not affect the 25 percent of the trustees that we elect by special agreement with Houston Baptist.”

The proposed change also will not change HBU’s commitment to its Baptist identity, Sloan said.

“We are a Baptist institution. We will remain a Baptist institution. That’s who we are,” he said.

The move to allow non-Baptists some representation on the school’s governing board grows out of an awareness of the diversity within the HBU student body and the surrounding city, he explained.

“We are located here in the nation’s fourth-largest city — soon to be third-largest city. Our entire city is enormously diverse, but at the same time, it also has a rich Christian witness,” Sloan said.

HBU historically has drawn support from the broad Christian community in the region, and HBU’s leaders became convinced non-Baptist Christians needed some presence on the governing board, he added.

“To cooperate with other Christians in this way seems a logical progression,” he said.

Any change in the school’s statement of faith as expressed in the preamble to its governing document would require a 100 percent vote of the trustee board, he noted.

The BGCT will continue to elect 25 percent of the HBU board, and of the 75 percent of the board HBU directly elects, at least two-thirds will be Baptist, Sloan said. The BGCT provides about $375,000 annually to HBU — about 0.7 percent of the school’s budget.

Sloan expressed his respect for the decision messengers to the BGCT annual meeting made in McAllen, but he added the school’s leaders became convinced allowing non-Baptists a minority presence on the governing board was “absolutely vital” for HBU to fulfill its mission.

“In our to fulfill our mission, the feeling was that we had to have at least some representation from non-Baptists on our board,” he said.

“I am confident Baptists will overwhelmingly understand why it is important for us to do this.”

EDITORS NOTE:  The story originally was posted Feb. 27. It was updated Feb. 28 to include statements from HBU President Robert Sloan.